The Inquirer (Monrovia)
15 April 2008
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says her government intends to increase the salaries of civil servants in what she called, "a small way" in the next fiscal budget.
At the moment, the minimum salary for a civil servant stands at US$55.00, which is an equivalence of L$3,300.00.
In the last fiscal budget, the government increased the salary of civil servants from appropriately US15.00 to US$55.00.
The Liberian leader said the decision by her government is intended to help civil servants cope with the anticipated global increase in the price of commodities on the market.
In a nation wide address to the nation yesterday, President Sirleaf said her government knows that things are difficult nowadays especially as it relates to prices of commodities but that her government is also doing its best to control the situation.
The President said her government is quite cognizant of its limitations in controlling the increasing prices on the market and hopes to activate the country's mines and agriculture concessions to provide jobs for Liberians, while it is at the same time trying to increase civil servants' salaries to enable them cope with the increase of prices on the market.
Dwelling specifically on the price of the nation's staple food, rice, President Sirleaf said that her government is aware that the price of rice and other food items are increasing worldwide, stressing that because of the demand from countries, whose population are larger and richer, it has overtaken the production or supply of these commodities.
"We cannot control the increase on the world market price but we can do some things on the domestic side to bring relief to the population," she added.
President Sirleaf said in fact, the government has already taken a major step by removing the US$2 tax on a bag of rice, which she noted amounts to a revenue shortfall of over US$3 million.
According to her, without this action on the part of the government, the price of a bag of rice would be more than the current official price of US$26 to US$28 dollars for the four to five months' stock that is on hand. She added: "The real solution to this problem is that we must grow our own rice. Every space in the back yard, every farm; every community must start to grow rice, cassava, plantain, for projections to show that increase in food prices will be with us for a long time to come."
The President said in this regard, her government has approved and forwarded for Legislative ratification a US$30 million Concession Agreement for investment in large scale mechanized rice production, while another proposal is under consideration for similar purpose as the government has now requested the Chinese agricultural team to start the training and the program for production of large scale mechanized rice farming near the Central Agriculture Research Institute (CARI) in Bong County as a way of dealing with the problem.
She said a committee chaired by the Ministry of Agriculture will look at the purchase and the distribution of seed rice for those ready to plant and that government would study the possibility of offering public land to those who are willing to go to their communities to engage in farming.
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